The proliferation of cloud technologies is bringing the world closer together. Connecting people and companies that were once rivals, on central platforms.

This network effect is establishing a new generation of company, one that chooses to collaborate in a coordinated ecosystem in order to innovate and give customers the best experience possible.

Xero CEO, Rod Drury, recently explained on Techcrunch that this new collaboration economy is transforming the way services and products are developed.

“Seamless customer experiences are no longer just a strategy, they’re now seen as mandatory. The next generation of companies have emerged from a world that values design and customer experiences.

“Customers are at the center of every decision, to the point where it’s their journey, both in and out of a product, that matters most.”

Several factors are driving the trend of innovating in an ecosystem including, an increasingly transient workforce where it’s not unusual for people to move countries, jobs or careers several times in their lives. It means transparency and cross-pollination of ideas comes naturally to these younger firms.

“They are born with the confidence to partner, and compete — if required — through their user experience. Active founders like meeting other founders, and have a shared empathy for building businesses and genuinely enjoy helping others,” Drury said.

And he’s not alone.

David Barrett, founder and CEO of Expensify, says the strength of marketplaces comes down to an open API framework that infiltrates a company’s entire culture. “The idea that individual software must be all-encompassing is a thing of the past; we live in an era where add-ons should be embraced instead of being seen as a threat,” Barrett says.

The way we communicate with our greater networks has been totally transformed by the cloud.

The relationship between professionals is no longer limited by a connection’s inability to pick up the phone or meet in-person. Nurturing these networks is vital.

This was the key point taken from LinkedIn Co-Founder and Vice President of Product Management, Allen Blue’s appearance at Xerocon San Francisco.

Speaking to more than 1,000 delegates, Allen explained that having a strong network enables professionals to thrive.

“A network is a fundamental component of being successful in business,” Allen said. “It doesn’t mean you go out and meet people all the time, it doesn’t mean you have to go out and go to network mixers. It means you’ve got a great relationship with somebody who you’ve worked with for a while.”

He shared some ways accountants can develop strong networks and make the most of them.

Develop mutually beneficial connections

Allen explained that a professional relationship should offer a wealth of opportunities, insight and information. These benefits should run on a two-way street. The relationship should be built on a foundation of care and compassion.

“You have to have real, genuine interest in the other person being successful, because it’s great to have a friend or colleague, someone who you know and respect and see them be successful,” Allen said.

“So if you can help them be that, then it’s just a great reward all by itself. But it just so happens that at the same time, you’re building that relationship for the future.”

Offer a helping hand

Allen said if accountants want to go out today and start strengthening their networks, they need to find a peer and figure out a way in which they can offer their help.

“The best way – as my co-founder Reed Hoffman says – to get the attention of people who are really busy, is to help them achieve something,” Allen said.

When the time comes and you need help solving a problem, look to your network for the solution.

“Think about, ‘is there someone I know or is there someone I can find through someone I know, through a product like LinkedIn, who can help me solve this problem today?’, because that one hour you spend over coffee with somebody talking about your problem is probably going to be the best hour you ever spend,” Allen said.

He explained having a strong network and making the most of it enables accountants to tap into the knowledge of their peers.

“The people that surround you and the information in their heads is an incredibly valuable asset,” Allen said.

At day one of Xerocon San Francisco, accountants and bookkeepers learned how to get the most from the Xero platform, through Product Mastery sessions, demos, one-on-ones with Xero developers and education sessions with the Xero learning squad.

Xero’s Accounting Ambassador for the Southwest, Amanda Aguillard, led a Product Mastery session outlining how accounting professionals can streamline procedures and save even more time with Xero.

More than 1000 delegates had the chance to get hands-on with some of the latest Xero features at the event. Many realizing that the time taken in the past to perform manual tasks like data entry and recoding is now slashed due to the automation and collaboration Xero offers.

Aguillard is a CPA and launched her cloud-based firm, Aguillard Accounting, nearly five years ago. Her practice now services more than 50 clients. From her wealth of experience, she shared best practices for setting up clients on Xero.

1. Plot the right road map

At Xerocon, Aguillard said it’s important for accountants to ensure the framework is laid down for accountants and their clients to successfully collaborate in the cloud.

“Strategic setup is important, it saves you time,” Aguillard said.

Mapping out a client’s ecosystem from the outset will make it easier to choose the right app partners for the accountant and their client. This selection process is simplified even more so with Xero’s App Marketplace, where you will find more than 500 apps. Accountants can search the Marketplace by app function or industry vertical.

2. Automate

Aguillard said the simpler accountants can make accounting for small business owners, “the more likely they are to do it”. Clients should be able to jump into Xero quickly and, with a couple of clicks, be done.

Aguillard detailed how setting up solid bank rules enables accountants to capitalize on the efficiencies of Find & Recode. In the Cash Coding tab, users can set bank rules with a specific title to take the guesswork out of reconciliation. Aguillard said accountants can “reconcile tons of lines with the click of a button”.

3. Train clients

There are some things that only accounting professionals are able to help their clients with. Accountants should gently train clients to do little things to make the work easier and free up time. Time that can be spent providing higher-value services.

Aguillard said accountants should train their clients to upload documents with meaningful names, for example: naming a receipt by its date, vendor, and amount. Pdfs are preferable too. It’s all about thinking about the little things that will add-up.

Spending the time today to carefully set up clients in Xero, along with implementing best practices, will enable accountants to help small businesses thrive.

Speaking at Xerocon San Francisco, accountingfly CEO, Jeff Phillips, said listings for remote positions on the company’s jobs board receive eight times more applicants than open positions at traditional firms.

Jeff shared how accountingfly have refined their recruitment strategy over the past year and a half and how this strategy has been transformed because of the largest group in the workforce, millennials.

Jeff said building a recruiting strategy is about telling the right story at the right place. In light of this technological and generational shift, he shared some of his tips for building a successful recruiting strategy.

Decide what drives your culture

Defining your firm’s benefits is part of what drives its culture. He used Xero app partner, Gusto, as an example. They offer staff members unlimited PTO, and while staff members are free to take advantage of this benefit, they need to make sure their job gets done. While this may not be an option at every firm, offering location flexibility may be a suitable alternative.

Jeff also mentioned offering unconventional paternity and maternity benefits as a drawcard. Implementing objective-based promotions has proven successful for many accounting firms. Doing so gives employees milestones to work towards rather than timelines, which in turn drives incentive.

Articulate your recruitment brand

Jeff said if a firm vocalizes their culture, they will work towards lower turnover. In the hiring and interview process, let potential employees know of your size and values from the get-go and let them know why they should trust your firm with their career.

Recruit every day

Jeff said recruiting shouldn’t be something that comes up when there is a position to be filled. Recruiting should be a constant momentum. Firms should develop an internal referral program where employees are rewarded for referring talent.

Again, even when there isn’t an open position within the firm, firm leaders should be always willing to meet with new talent. Meet with graduates and make these connections so, when there is an open position, it can be quickly filled with someone who has already been vetted.

Create quality content

Jeff shared a powerful statistic during his session at Xerocon. He said applications from quality candidates are increased by 300 percent when a company shares relevant content on their website and social media channels.

By blogging, creating videos and more you increase your company’s exposure to potential hires. The next time your perfect candidate is looking for a job and they see your firm’s name on a job listing, they’ll remember reading a blog on your firm’s website about how to look for a job in Southern California, to use an example.

As millennials have dictated the change when it comes to how firms today recruit, firms need to get with the program or get left behind. By taking these steps into account, firms will be able to recruit and retain the best talent from the hiring pool.

The accelerating pace of technology means small businesses must learn to adapt faster or risk falling behind. To do that, entrepreneurs need to look at how new platforms fit into their operations. That’s the key takeaway from Xero Chief Marketing and Revenue Officer, Andy Lark’s Xerocon keynote.

Speaking to more than 2,200 delegates, Lark explained that the most successful businesses are those that are most adept at change.

“Successful entrepreneurs figure out how to change, not slowly, but really quickly,” he said.

“Those businesses that are moving to the cloud ahead of those that aren’t, are doing exponentially better.

“Our accounting partners are integral to the success of Xero. Without our accounting and bookkeeping partners going all-­in on cloud accounting technology, we wouldn’t be able to help as many small businesses as we do today,” Lark said.

“Xero’s partner firms and their clients, who are collaborating seamlessly in the cloud, demonstrate just how impactful cloud technology has become.”

Recent Xero research shows that firms with a higher concentration of clients using cloud accounting software are adding more business and seeing higher year­-over-­year revenue growth.

A lot of the innovation we’re doing is in the service offering that wraps around the Xero product.

“It’s so important for you to understand the role of the platform in the future of this world,” Lark said. “Platforms change everything.”

“We are creating a platform on which small businesses can go to work and interact with a whole ecosystem of people around them.

“If we can grow your businesses on our platform, we all win.

“You can take best-of-breed components and plug them into the best platforms ever created. We provide the vital links for information and data to flow. When you embrace the platform opportunity, big things can happen.”

Investing heavily in maintaining an open platform and establishing an ecosystem has become one of our key competitive advantages. It’s also become a competitive advantage for many of our partners that have integrated to connect with over 700,000 Xero subscribers, to grow.

For customers, they benefit from the ecosystem because it drives innovation en masse. Since 2011, we’ve grown from 25 add-ons to more than 500 partner integrations today. All the companies connecting to Xero APIs can benefit from the Xero marketplace, where small businesses access and search for tailored solutions integrated to Xero. And, with over a quarter of our customers connecting other business tools to Xero, the small business ecosystem is thriving.

For companies in the ecosystem, leveraging the platform can make a small vendor more nimble than a large incumbent, and a shared customer doesn’t have to compromise on functionality as the various tools integrate.

“We invest in building the world’s best platform, that’s how we win,” Lark said. “The great businesses out there are putting platforms, like Xero, at the core of their business. That’s how they win.”

Mel Robbins created the premise for one of the most powerful TED Talks of all time when she couldn’t get out of bed.

Mel is a Human Behavior Specialist and entrepreneur, and created the Five-Second Rule while her and her husband were going through a difficult time in their professionals lives. Today, the video of her TED Talk has clocked more than 7,000,000 views.

Speaking at Xerocon in San Francisco, Mel told how the Five-Second Rule means every time you have an impulse to act on a goal you must physically move within five seconds and act on it in that time frame.

As an entrepreneur herself, Mel knows what it’s like to struggle with hesitation. She shared two areas small business owners can use the Five-Second Rule.

Focus

Mel said small business owners are constantly struggling with where to focus their time and their energy. The moment they walk into work, they feel they have lost control of their day. Small business owners should take time at the start of their day to prepare for what’s ahead.

“Force yourself to spend 10 to 15 minutes planning your day and working on the one strategic objective that you keep avoiding before you leave for work,” Mel said.

“Most small business owners wake up, look at their phone and start panicking. You want to grow your business, you’ve got to put the phone down, you’ve got to get up… you’ve got to sit down with a notebook and spend five minutes and think about what you are going to get done today that will help you expand your business.”

Mel said small business owners should clock this time in the morning and use the Five-Second Rule to do it. When your alarm goes off in the morning? Five, four, three, two, one, do it. Get up.

Self-doubt

Mel said small business owners need to put a stop to the self-doubt that will ultimately cripple their small business if it isn’t stifled. The biggest obstacles small business owners face is the worries they place in their head.

“We have an app partner Friday where we spend hours talking about app partners,” Galang says. “We share our experience and how we implemented app partners for our clients.”

Focus on global opportunity, not limited opportunity

Because of Xero’s global focus, Galang says they are now able to take advantage of technology solutions from around the world.

“As users of global software, we are able to accept and process transactions from all over the world,” Galang said.

Double Rule began offering services to other parts of the world, specifically Asia, in March of this year.

Galang closed by recalling how it was once a widely-held belief that the world was flat. This hypothesis opened up trade and paved the way to offer resources all over the world. He said the world will be considered flat again in the future – in a not so literal sense – and the way will be paved once again, but this time by technology.

While almost 60% of accounting graduates are women, this statistic does not translate when it comes to the amount of women in accounting firm leadership positions. Just under 20% of firm leaders are women.

At this year’s Xerocon in San Francisco, Xero’s Global Vice President of Education and US Head of Accounting, Amy Vetter, sat down with an all-female panel of leaders to discuss the challenges faced by professional women in 2016 and why it is so important to have women in the accounting and finance industry.

The disconnect in female leadership

Amy was joined by Ingrid Vanderveldt, the Founder and Chairman of Empowering a Billion Women by 2020 (EBW2020). Ingrid was the first Entrepreneur-in-Residence for Dell where she oversaw entrepreneurial initiatives worldwide. Ingrid said while the success of women in accounting is important to the individual, it also has a broader purpose.

“Your success is so unbelievably important, not only to the profession, but to the women out there that you serve,” Ingrid said.

Ingrid said when she founded EBW2020’s grant program, only men applied. She developed the understanding that the disconnect in female leadership comes from a lack of confidence.

“We can solve the confidence issue when we take action and we can take action when we have mentorship,” Ingrid said.

She says women developing confidence comes from a “fake it till you make it” disposition.

Building on the women that come before

Lisa Cines joined Amy onstage, she joined her first firm in 1982 and later went on to become its first female partner. With more than 30 years of public accounting experience, she is now the Regional Partner in Charge of Business Development and Marketing at Dixon Hughes Goodman.

Lisa said when she joined the firm there were not many women that had come before her.

“There were no maternity benefits,” Lisa said. “They didn’t really didn’t know what to do with me.”

Lisa added that it’s incredible what Xero is doing for women in the accounting profession, as the software gives them the flexibility they need when dynamics in their personal life change. Over her many years in the industry, she learned what does and doesn’t work.

“The first thing I learned was knowing myself personally and professionally,” Lisa said. “My husband has been a true partner in this journey. I learned I actually had to ask what I wanted from him.”

“It’s about finding great teammates and collaborators, both men and women. From day one I was fortunate enough to work with some gentlemen that became great mentors.”

Diverse thought makes businesses smarter

Joanne Cleaver joined Amy onstage. Joanne is President of communications firm, Wilson-Taylor Associates, Inc. She heads the Accounting MOVE project, which studies the demographics of CPA firms and questions them on how they remove barriers to the advancement of women.

She said having a diverse staff means having diverse ideas. Having women in leadership positions means a unique perspective.

“Being a woman shapes your experience in business,” Joanne said. “The more types of thinking we have the smarter we are going to be together.”

Amy wrapped up by saying women looking to lead need to look for where the growth opportunities are and go for it.

Finding and retaining great people is something all small business owners spend a lot of time doing, so staying on top of ever-changing labor regulations is important, both for employee retention as well as for labor law compliance. Xero and TSheets have amped up our partnership to help small business owners avoid the regulatory challenges associated with changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Under the FLSA employers are required to keep accurate timesheets for overtime-eligible employees for at least two years. Without easily accessible records, it’s very hard to defend against wage and hours disputes in a court of law. The integration of TSheets and Xero can lessen the burden that this puts on small business owners by guaranteeing fewer data entry inaccuracies and offering increased transparency to employees throughout the process.

Small business owners should follow these two easy steps:

1. Track time with TSheets

TSheets will store all online timesheets securely with 24/7 access for both employers and employees. TSheets also allows employees to track their breaks and overtime and to edit their timesheets as needed — with a time-stamped audit log of every change and approval that’s made. Easily export approved time from TSheets to Xero in a single click.

2. Run payroll with Xero

Xero eliminates hours spent on manual data entry and calculations, seamlessly linking payroll with the accounting functions. Aligning payroll and accounting allows small business owners to pay employees and manage appropriate taxes. Xero also provides employees the capabilities to view pay stubs, enter hours, submit time off requests and more – whenever they like.

Payments to employees is one of the biggest cost line items for every small business. By following these two steps small business owners can be confident that they are paying their employees fairly, which allows owners to spend more time on their most important task…building their businesses.

Building a modern cloud accounting practice doesn’t happen overnight. The process is executed successfully with careful planning and access to the right resources. Starting by choosing cloud accounting software, while a great first step, is certainly not the last step.

Speaking at Xerocon SF today, Global Vice President, Education & Head of Accounting, Amy Vetter explained that as more clients expect their accounting firm to be able to collaborate in the cloud, firms that start out in the cloud from day one are at a competitive advantage. If you’ve only just started moving clients over to your cloud accounting software, there’s no better time than now to go all-in.

More than 700,000 Xero subscribers, who are collaborating seamlessly in the cloud, are already demonstrating just how impactful cloud technology has become. Recent Xero research shows that firms with a higher concentration of clients using online accounting software are adding more business and seeing higher year-on-year revenue growth.

Accounting firms with nearly 100% of their clients using online cloud accounting software, reported the highest growth, posting 15.5% increase in year-on-year revenue, compared to 3.9% for firms not all-in on cloud accounting.

Here are four ways you can build a modern cloud accounting practice.

Make a plan

When making a full transition, it’s important to establish a clear plan with milestones that you’re trying to achieve along the way. Decide who is dedicated to converting clients and who will take care of the day-to-day.

This may mean that attracting new clients has to take a back seat. The focus needs to be on developing this new infrastructure. Rest assured that you’re making an investment in your firm’s future. When developing this plan, make sure you’re not taking what you have today and duplicating it. You should be taking what you have today and enhancing it for the future.

Employ millennials

Having diversity within your firm is part of what will make it successful. If you haven’t already got millennials working in your firm, you will. They have already become the largest group in the workforce.

Technology generally comes as second nature to millennials. Growing up in front of screens puts them in a position where they are quick to adapt to new technology. This should help ease the transition. Passing on your knowledge to this generation adds value to the profession.

Attracting millennials to your firm is not as simple as posting a job listing. In Vetter’s Keynote at Xerocon, she explained how.

“It’s not just the technology, it’s the culture you put in place,” Vetter said.

Vetter said working toward this culture means implementing mentorship, growth opportunities and a fun work environment in your firm.

Reassess billing

With the majority or all of your clients now on the cloud, you can work seamlessly on one ledger using one set of data. It means accountants can increasingly shed the amount of data entry work, replacing it with higher value advisory services where you can help your small businesses grow. Vetter talks about moving from “credence” good to “experience” good and becoming invaluable to small business clients.

“We want small businesses to say, ‘I can’t imagine not having you as part of my business on a monthly basis’,” Vetter said.

Value pricing, while a relatively new concept to accounting firms, is a more reflective way to bill in a cloud-based firm. Services are grouped into bundles for which a set amount is charged, giving firms further incentive to improve efficiency. This gives the small business owner a set amount to budget for and frees up time for accounting professionals to work on advisory services. Vetter said it’s about shifting the vernacular.

“Accounting firms should change the terminology from time and billing to effort,” Vetter said.

Implement a social media strategy

Once you feel comfortable with the way your conversions are traveling and you’re ready to take on new clients, what better way to advertise your modern practice than on social media? Have a clear picture of your market and develop a strategy as to how you can best market your firm.

Develop a social media guide for your firm to follow. Keep in mind the visibility of the platforms as you may need to ask staff to perform an audit of their accounts. Xero has a social media guide you can use to get started.

Laying down the right framework and equipping your firm with the right tools will ensure the transition to a modern cloud accounting practice is smooth sailing.

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